I am looking for a bullet mold for a 6.5mm (.264) caliber bullet with or without gas check for a bullet ranging somewhere between 100gr and 120gr. I have looked through the sources I have found but haven't seen anything less than 140gr molds. My application is for a 10" pistol barrel chambered for 6.5 Grendel. I would like to try some cast bullets so that I can be assured of good expansion at 100yds. Right now my velocities, (2000 fps) are right at the minimum expressed by most jacketed bullet companies for expected expansion and I am wanting something I can be confident will open up and expand on deer out to 100 yds. If anybody can point me in the right direction I would appreciate it.

You might check with lyman. One of my older manuals lists 3 bullets that may fit your requrements. One is a gc at 101 grains #266305, the other a pb at 119 grains #266324, also a gc at 127 grains #266455. Hope this helps a bit. Regards Johnjay

Thanks for the info. I have started checking Ebay and Gunbroker for moulds. I did find a supplier online for some 120gr bullets. He is making me up 100 to try out. These are from obsolete Lyman molds, so I guess the only way to get one is from an auction or just by luck.

Crazydave, thanks for the thoughts. However, I don't know if you are familiar with the 6.5 Grendel cartridge or not, but 140gr bullets do not work well with it. Chambers are short and so is the case. You lose too much powder capacity when using 140gr bullets with this cartridge.

Out of curiosity, what's a typical barrel twist in the Grendel? If it's longer than the other 6.5's, that could be an issue for the long bullets, too.

If you get stuck, you can do a design-your-own at Mountain Molds. That way you could get both the gas check and weight you want. I think the idea of running a relatively soft bullet with a gas check for 2 kps makes sense. Running in the middle of your weight range in QuickLOAD, it looks like a 110 grain GC design with long bore riding nose just under an inch long over about 90% filll of IMR 4198 would get to the velocity you want without gross inefficiency.

"First contemplation of the problems of Interior Ballistics gives the impression that they should yield rather easily to relatively simple methods of analysis. Further study shows the subject to be of almost unbelievable complexity." Homer Powley

So it's optimized for the long MatchKing shapes, then. Shorter flat base bullets. like a 110 grain bullet an inch long at 2000 fps, would only need about an 11"-12" twist. The faster twist will tend to add to wobble, but it should be too bad. I'll be interested to hear how this turns out?

"First contemplation of the problems of Interior Ballistics gives the impression that they should yield rather easily to relatively simple methods of analysis. Further study shows the subject to be of almost unbelievable complexity." Homer Powley